“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

You are lucky to be able to cycle through such a flat landscape. My cycling is all up hill and down dale but only takes me past wind farms. The big wind farm that I cycle through is rarely working, even though it sits on the top of the highest ridge around and is visible from both Exmoor and Dartmoor. At the public inquiry I told the Inspector that, based on a variety of evidence, it would have a capacity factor of about 20%, but he (as expected) preferred to believe the developer’s much higher figure. To date it has achieved 20.03%.

It is also noteworthy that the wind farm has been operating unlawfully since last November, as it has not met the imposed noise condition. Needless to say, the local authority has not yet done anything about it (like shut it down).

Phillip …. I always enjoy yr contributions.
Just a thought ….. I am an expat Brit living in B.C., so am not well..versed in the debate to the extent I wd be were I back! Is there not a Representative Anti..Wind Turbines Group (Hmmmm….. RAWTUG.?) which cd usefully take select battles to Court and get some precedentary decisions? I,d look for widespread mem,ship in the obvious places for starters, and actively seek to build ‘clout’ ….. hopefully as a rolling snowball.
Are there cross..Channel groups who cd help and synergize with?
It be fun to brainstorm all the potentially interested stakeholders …. they may not be limited to those directly blighted!
Even from here, I,d chip..in a tenner!

Now now Paul, that is cheating as I am sure you know. Both the chimneys are burning apparently clear – no smoke, just good old CO2 to feed the plants. The big white cloud over one set of cooling towers is water vapour (a powerful greenhouse gas if course) not CO2.
You are doing what the BBC does and pretending the condensate is a measure of the emissions. Naughty boy.

PM2.5 (fine particulates) – figures less certain due to insufficient and out of date figures used but the report estimates biomass accounts for 14% (2012) of all UK PM2.5 emissions compared to 21% (2012) from road. The report concedes the biomass emissions could be significantly higher if 2012 domestic wood consumption figure had been used (31,000 tonnes) instead of old figure (10,000 tonnes).

In urban areas in winter, biomass could account for more harmful PM2.5 emissions than traffic.

The percentage of carcinogenic benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) emissions attributed to biomass grew from 2% in 1990 to over 50% in 2012, as emissions from other sources fell.
Since there are virtually no BaP emissions from burning natural gas, switching from gas to wood burning for domestic heating will lead “to a large increase” in BaP emissions, the report concludes.

Dioxins from biomass emissions have grown in the same way too, rising from 6% to 33%.

And Drax didn’t fully convert to biomass until 2012-2016. Those particulate figures must be way higher now.

It also notes that “the UK is legally committed to meeting 15% of its energy demand from renewable sources by 2020”

True but report doesn’t note that since at the end of 2016 we were only about 9.6% “renewables” (bio + hydro/solar/geo), getting to 15% in 3 more years means a further ~55% increase. Not going to happen.

I like your photo’s Paul, well………………. I love the one of Drax – I like power stations they energize me.
The picture of the tree lined road is a good un too, it’s that middle one which is greatly spoiled – talk about blots on the landscape, ugly useless boondoggles and monumental signposts highlighting the greatest ‘Mann’ made folly.

And the saddest reflection [on the whirlygigs] that’s our money not blowing and blowing away – in the wind.

the photo shows only steam arising from the cooling towers, perfectly clean. Your photo shows that one of the stations is working flat out out whilst the other is offline – no visible emissions from cooling towers.

This is a frustratingly common error throughout the media world: to show steam from cooling towers as being CO2 or smoke emissions. Sad to see you falling for it Paul. Any CO2 and/or smoke emissions come from the solitary tall chimney; they are rarely visible because they are cleaned and filtered before discharge.

I refer to the photo of the idyllic, tree..lined lane set in pastural beauty. Enjoy it while ye may.
When we rely on Renewables for Primary Production, the countryside will be converted from Agriculture to Electriculture, horizon..to..horizon, across mountains, dales, moors and valleys. Densely packed Wind..Turbine Forests and vast Solar Ranches will be higgle..piggle with collection cables, switch..yards and transformers, plug..ugly Battery..Storage Barns, and the whole lot criss..crossed by maintenance roads and telemetry and cable easements.
Country lanes with their associated walls and fences and lines of trees will be widened and straightened to an industry.. standard, coiled razor..wire fenced 20′ +/- to allow fire..trucks to pass construction cranes, heavy equipment on transporters and heavy trucks …. and dumpsters for all the redundant packing materiel and wind..towers and solar..panels being recycled at the ends of their useful lives (life cycle 15 years??).
To say nothing of the Wreckers’ Yards for recycling into dumpsters for component recyclables such as copper, steel, rare..esrth metals, silver, gear..oils, plastic?
In this Electriculture environment, nary a farmer will be seen ….. let alone a peasant , pheasant, flock of sheep or herd of cows. The sights, sounds and smells of the countryside will comprise the continual roar of demolition and reconstruction activity as the old is replaced by the new; non..stop beeping of reversing vuehicles; the stench of belching diesel fumes; the endless fiddling with disconnecting and reconnecting and replacing tired cabling; maintenance traffic, the continual traffic to and from the Battery Storage Barns replacing batteries.
In conclusion, look back to the distant shot of Drax Power Station, set distantly in a rural landscape, and compare it with the horizon..to..horizon Generating Ranch consequent on the conversion to Electriculture. Add the reliability and low..cost of conventionally generated electricity in major isolated Power Stations and the choice is obvious isn,t it? Drax plus exquisite countryside any day!
That idyllic photo will be one to hang on the wall to remind future henerations how bloody stupid their ancestors were in allowing their moronic leaders to wreck not only the countryside, but wreck a once reliable systey *and* force..up electricity bills many times over.
And all they had to do was invest in fleets of offshore Floating Nuclear Power Stations (FLONUPS) which I have unsuccessfully been trying to advance since just after Fukushima disaster (which never would have happened had they used FLONUPS). Further information on request.

Comments are closed.

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.